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Saturday, October 8, 2011

Day 5 was another day at port and this time it was on the beautiful island of St. Maarten.

Fort St. Louis at the top of one of the hills.

Some of the beautiful hillside mansions and condos.

Before we docked a small boat came out to drop off the navigator to steer the ship up to the dock. After he grabbed the boat he hung off the side of the boat with one hand and one foot and waved "hi" to all of us watching from the balconies.

Our balcony was on the side of the ship that pulled up to the dock so I got to see it all first hand.

How many guys does it take to tie up a huge cruise ship?

A small rope with a knot on the end was thrown over and these 3 guys kept pulling it over until they finally had the huge tie up rope to dock the ship. By the time they finished there was a total of about 20 to 30 ropes holding the ship in place at the front back and center.

Once it was tied up the three gangplanks were dropped and we were allowed to leave the ship to explore.

Rob and I signed up for an excursion on St. Maarten called the Aqua Boat & Jeep tour. We started off in Jeeps and followed the guides as we drove around the island to the marina.

At one point there was a small traffic jam as we had to wait for this herd of goats to wander across the road.

There was graffiti everywhere but this was the only one I was able to get a picture of.

The roads were barely wide enough for 2 cars to pass each other and many of them were very steep and winding like this one.

Of course the view at the top was worth the anxiety of getting there.

We finally made it to the marina and got in these little inflatable 2 seater boats. We then proceeded to zoom around the many islands and see all the huge, glamorous, and expensive mansions. Unfortunately we were advised not to take our cameras, phones or any other devices unless they were completely waterproof. I for one am glad that I didn't take the camera because as soon as we got 5 minutes into the trip we got soaked by a generous rainstorm (Not to mention being splashed by hitting big waves.) Fortunately it passed in about 10 minutes and we dried off very quickly in the breeze.

After about an hour and a half of being bounced around on the waves. (Ooooooo... my poor kidneys!) We got back in the jeep and made another journey to the other side of the island. We ended up at this beautiful beach to each lunch seaside. (I understand that the next beach over was the famous nude beach.... but we couldn't see anything.)

Here's Rob doing what he does best.

We tried the "hold up the camera and take your own picture" thing but I had closed my eyes. (OOPS!)

Oh yeah... almost forgot. We has a class that night (9pm) with Tim for only an hour and we made this adorable pocket watch. I originally put a chain on it but I ended up taking off the chain and using it in the last project. (Curious yet?)

Friday, October 7, 2011

I snapped a photo of Rob on our balcony as we were pulling into the port of St. Thomas. He picked the shirt all on his own in Cocoa Cay. (He really should be supervised when clothes shopping.)

The captain had to do some nifty parallel parking to put us in between the Carnival ship and the Disney ship which were already docked. The really sweet thing is that when the Disney ship left later on we got to hear the whistle which was the fist 7 notes of "When You Wish Upon A Star".

A lovely shot the bay with all the sailboats anchored up. No you're not losing your sight. The camera lens kept fogging up every time I went from the air conditioning to outside in the humidity and I was just too impatient to wait for it to climatize.

I suspect this was a Disney ship that was used for some day excursion.

This is the little cantina that we ate lunch at. It was down a small alley where we trying to take a shortcut to find the chocolate shop. Unfortunately I was over come by a combination of being hungry, not drinking enough water and the heat. As I reached out to tap Rob on the shoulder and tell him I was felt like I was going to pass out...... everything went black and down I went. Rob managed to catch me and sit me onto a short brick wall we happened to be walking next to. After I became a little more coherent he helped me over to the cantina and made me drink 2 bottles of water. We also had a very delicious marguerita pizza and then made our way back to the ship.

These are all just lovely photos of the buildings that we passed while riding in the open air taxi to and from downtown. Much to our regret the place was filled with mostly jewelry stores and little else in the way of something interesting.

Since there was no class today here are the photos of the journal as it looks so far. I still have to print my photos out and decide what order I want the pages to be in and I will probably add more embellishments.

Someone brought tiny photocopies of Tim and Mario and I just couldn't resist putting them on this ship I found on the paper we were given when we made the travel cup.

The stickers on the above three pages looked too new compared to the paper they were going onto so I lightly sanded them then rubbed on some Walnut Stain Distress ink then wiped it off with a damp paper towel.

Some Tim stamps that I colored with a paintbrush and some Distress Stain.

The butterflies on the left page were colored with some Pearl Mist and a paintbrush.

Some of the vintage goodies from the paper pack I managed to snag from the precious center table in the marketplace store.

We received a little printed booklet from Scrapmap a month before our journey to tell us the class schedule and class groupings which I cut up and used parts of in the journal.

Be sure and come back tomorrow to see our day excursion on St. Maarten and another Tim project.